


This Heart Shut Wide

by xanthippe74



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, Happy Ending, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Misunderstandings, New Year's Eve, POV Draco Malfoy, Secret Relationship, brief angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22051603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanthippe74/pseuds/xanthippe74
Summary: It’s New Year’s Eve and Draco refuses to talk to anyone at this wretched party in the Eighth-Year common room. He’s going to ignore Harry Potter and not think about snogging him in the staircase earlier. And he’sdefinitelynot going to let himself fuck up both their lives by continuing the reckless game they’re playing.As usual, nothing goes according to Draco’s plan.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 40
Kudos: 854





	This Heart Shut Wide

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired, in part, by Harry and Draco’s conversation in _Cursed Child_ , in which Draco says, “Mainly I wanted to be happy.” (Part 2, Act 4, scene 4)
> 
> The title is from J.S. Ondara’s song [“Saying Goodbye”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WchPdy7jHZ4):
> 
> _Heaviness of this heart shut wide,_  
>  _Now my flesh, at arms with my pride..._
> 
> With thanks to phdmama for her thoughtful reading and advice.

If anyone asked him how he’d spend the first New Year’s Eve after the war, Draco is certain he’d never guess it would be like this—more than half-frozen and less than half-drunk at a party where everyone is ignoring him.

His plan, apparently, is to spend the rest of 1998 brooding on this frigid window seat where the dimmed lights of the Eighth-Year common room barely reach him. And being the miserable bugger he knows he is, he’s not going to do anything to make himself warmer, drunker, or… more noticed. Instead, he’s going to think of all the places he could be if the terms of his probation didn’t confine him to Hogwarts until he takes his NEWTs. He could be properly drunk on decent alcohol—not the swill that Finnigan smuggled into the castle—with Pansy in Paris. He could be with his mother, listening to the waves crash through the open windows of a Greek villa.

 _You could be in Azkaban with your father,_ he reminds himself. Draco shudders and pulls his knees up against his chest.

There’s an hour left until midnight and the party’s in full swing. Everyone’s on their third or fourth drink and the music and voices seem to be getting louder by the minute. The ones who can’t stand up anymore are draped over the furniture and their fellow classmates. They look like Flobberworms wearing brightly-coloured jumpers, in Draco’s opinion. He finds this erasure of personal boundaries embarrassing to witness, but at the same time he feels an ache in his chest, a longing to be touched by another person.

There’s only one person who touches Draco nowadays.

 _He’s_ sitting on the floor by the fireplace—heaven forbid the Chosen One be cold—with a bottle of beer held loosely in his hand and his head resting against Granger’s knee. Draco remembers sitting like that with Pansy once upon a time, remembers the feel of her fingers sliding through his hair and her sharp-as-glass laughter echoing through the Slytherin common room.

Draco misses her like mad. She and her parents fled England even before the Daily Prophet put out their special edition trumpeting the war’s end. Their other Slytherin yearmates weren’t far behind and, other than Draco, only those from families untainted by _unfortunate_ (as his mother describes them) allegiances have returned to Hogwarts.

Davis and Greengrass are holding court on a sofa tonight, sipping their drinks and enjoying the attention of a pair of Ravenclaws. The girls survived the war with their reputations and Slytherin instincts intact, if their refusal to interact with Draco is any indication. At least the other Eighth Years acknowledge him, if only to pay lip service to McGonagall’s (very belated) crusade for Interhouse Unity.

Draco’s eyes are drawn back to Potter when his laughter rises over the noise of the party. He’s clinking his beer bottle against Weasley’s, as if that ginger buffoon managed to say something witty for once. What would he say if he found out his best mate was snogging the breath out of Draco only a few hours ago? That he slid his hands, still cold from the walk from Hogsmeade, into the back of Draco’s trousers as he was being pressed against the rough, stone wall of the staircase to the boys’ dormitory?

 _Merlin,_ that had been their most intense kiss yet. Draco feels his cheeks warm, despite the icy draft from the window, when he remembers the desperate way they touched each other. He wonders what would have happened, how far they would have gone, if they hadn’t heard voices at the bottom of the stairs and fled to their respective rooms. He wonders if Potter pushed his hand into the front of his trousers as soon as he was alone, like Draco had.

As if he senses someone’s eyes on him, Potter turns his head to look at Draco. He didn’t need to look around to find him, which makes Draco think that Potter has been aware of his location all along. What a fucking pair they are. Between Potter’s utter incapacity for self-preservation and Draco’s fixation, they’re both hopeless when it comes to ignoring each other.

Potter levers himself off the floor by gripping Granger’s knee, which makes her squawk and push his hand away. He weaves unsteadily through the armchairs and half-prone bodies toward Draco’s window seat, beer bottle still dangling from his fingertips.

Draco turns his head toward the window as he approaches. If he leans close to the glass, he can block out the light behind him enough to see outside. It’s very dark; there’s no moon to illuminate the frozen grounds, but the stars are bright overhead.

“Hey,” Potter says. His feet bump Draco’s as he climbs onto the other end of the seat. “What’re you doin’? Iss cold over here.”

Irritation rises up inside Draco like bubbles in a thick potion. Potter’s only talking to him because he’s drunk, and because his friends are drunk and won’t notice that he and Potter are behaving in a way that’s too friendly for them. They’ve both been careful to keep up the appearance of a reluctant truce, but it would be just like Potter to get them caught in the middle of a party.

He acknowledges Potter’s presence with a quick glance before turning back to the window.

“I’m... watching for shooting stars,” Draco says.

“Oooh. If you see one, you have to make a wish,” Potter replies.

“And why would I do that?”

“Iss tradition, you tosser.” Potter laughs and pokes Draco’s shin with his stockinged foot. “What are you gonna wish for? You’re already rich. And pretty,” he adds with another laugh.

Draco looks back at Potter to make a scathing remark, but he only manages to twist his mouth in annoyance. Potter is curled up with the cuffs of his lumpy, red jumper pulled over his hands, and he’s wearing a lopsided grin that tugs at something in Draco’s chest. He looks so carefree and open, like someone who has shed his burdens for good.

Like someone who can enjoy himself without wondering if he deserves it.

“Is it like those absurd Muggle fairy tales where someone gets a wish granted by a djinn or a fairy? Yes, Potter, I do know about those,” Draco says in response to Potter’s surprised expression. “Zabini took Muggle Studies, shockingly, and I read his books. For a laugh of course, because the stories are ridiculous.”

“Why are they ridickaluss? Cause they’re Muggle?” Potter demands.

“No, because every witch and wizard knows that djinns always twist the wisher’s words to give them something nasty and fairies bite if you get too close to them,” Draco says acerbically.

“Stars don’t bite,” Potter says, waving his bottle at the window and chuckling at his nonsensical observation. “C’mon, tell me what you’d wish for if you saw a shooting star. What d’you want most?”

Draco tilts his head back against the wall behind him and looks at the stars through the window. Despite his scorn for the Muggle stories—which he expressed to Blaise with as much condescension as his fourteen-year-old self could manage—he did consider what he’d ask for, given the chance. While he would have loved to prevail against Potter just once, even his child self knew better than to waste a precious opportunity by wishing for a short-lived schoolyard victory. He already had more gold than he could ever spend, a guaranteed place at the apex of British wizarding society, and no small opinion of his own cleverness and good looks. And although his father expected Draco to share his appetite for power and influence, he secretly longed for something simpler. Something that seemed to elude him since he arrived at Hogwarts.

Lying in his bed in the Slytherin dorm, Draco decided what he would wish for. Four years later, his answer hasn’t changed.

“I just want to be happy.”

Potter looks a bit befuddled by Draco’s answer. _Good grief, he is drunk,_ Draco thinks. He doesn’t bother asking Potter what he would wish for; it would probably be something idiotic, like the Chudley Cannons winning the Quidditch championships or festive tea towels for the Hogwarts house elves.

“But it would be pointless to wish for that,” Draco continues, “because you can’t have happiness by wishing for it. It’s not a thing that can be conjured out of thin air, is it?”

“Well, no,” Potter says, tilting his head to consider it. “You have to figure out what’ll make you happy and go after it, I guess. Tha’s what I’ve decided.”

“Exactly. That’s the problem.”

“What’s the problem? Why can’t you do that?”

“Let’s just say that I have a well-established history of choosing things that I _think_ will make me happy, but end up doing the exact opposite. In fact, I usually end up fucking up my chances of future happiness as well.”

Draco says this with a pointed look at Potter, but he’s either too drunk or oblivious to notice. He starts grinning again and extends his legs so that his feet brush Draco’s hip.

“I can tessify to your stupid choices lately. Like trying to play Keeper last month. You were sore for a whole fuckin’ week! And when you play against Ron at wizarding chess— _definn-ly_ a bad idea. He’s the _best_.”

Potter leans forward to punctuate the last statement with a jab at Draco’s knee and almost topples sideways off the window seat. He’s obviously not the kind of drunk who likes serious conversations, Draco realises; he’s probably more comfortable with the teasing insults that they mutter and moan between kisses and bites. In the entire seven and a half years of their acquaintance, it’s the closest they’ve come to talking. Until now, apparently.

“And sitting in cold drafty winnowsills!” Potter adds triumphantly. “Really dumb, Malfoy. At leas’ cast a Warming Charm.”

“If you’re so cold, go back over by the fireplace,” Draco says. “I’m really not in the mood for company right now.”

“Fine, I will,” Potter says, swinging his feet down to the floor. “I was just trying to be nice since you’re sitting over here by yourself. Iss a party, you git. You could try to have fun.”

He scowls at Draco as he stands, then marches back to his friends.

Draco pulls his wand from his pocket and casts the Warming Charm. Potter’s right about one thing: it’s pointless to shiver here needlessly. The bubble of warm air surrounds him and although Draco’s hands and feet are still a bit numb, he’s more comfortable now. He closes his eyes and lets the noise of the party wash over him.

He thinks back on all his cruel, petty, and vindictive actions, the ones he thought would lead to gratifying victories and prove his superiority. Fucking Merlin, he was such a stupid little shit. All he got for his idiotic schemes were humiliation and—lately—shame. The faded mark on his left arm is only half the reason why Potter’s friends would be horrified if they found out what he’s been doing with Draco. He was vile to all of them from their very first day at Hogwarts. It’s not something they’ve likely forgotten, no matter how civil they’re being this year.

Gods, this thing with Potter is a terrible idea.

It started at a party that the Eighth Years threw in this room a month ago, their first of the school term. Some genius—a Hufflepuff, Draco suspects—thought copious amounts of alcohol and juvenile party games would ease the tension between the Slytherins and other houses. The result was an empty beer bottle, spun on the carpet, compelling Potter to kiss Draco in what should have been one of the most mortifying moments of his life.

But it wasn’t. It was electric. It was fucking life-changing. Those few seconds when Potter’s hot fingers were cupping Draco’s chin and their lips fit together _perfectly_ were enough to shake the foundations of Draco’s world. He didn’t even register the reaction of their classmates, he was so lost in the feel and taste of Potter’s mouth.

They pulled away at the same moment and stumbled back to their seats without looking at each other. Potter immediately took a long swig of his drink and accepted a consoling pat from Weasley. Draco sat on a sofa, in a daze that had nothing to do with alcohol, until the game was finished, then he drifted back toward his room when he thought no one was watching. He assumed that was the end of it.

It wasn’t the end. Potter caught up with him in the hallway just before Draco reached his door, green eyes blazing with equal parts heat and bravado.

_“That wasn’t a proper kiss, was it? I bet you can do better than that, Malfoy.”_

Of course Draco couldn’t resist a challenge like that. A challenge from Potter, no less, his erstwhile rival and perpetual thorn lodged under Draco’s skin. Insults were exchanged, handfuls of jumper were pulled and arms shoved away until—finally—their mouths collided again.

After that night, one of them managed to find the other every few days. A hidden alcove, an empty classroom, plus a few cutting words or a challenging lift of a chin were all it took to goad each other into another snog. Draco learnt where to touch Potter to make him pull his mouth away with a gasp. How to tilt his head so that Potter got the hint and went to work on Draco’s neck. He learnt that Potter takes his tea sweet when they kissed after breakfast. He knows when Potter has been to visit Hagrid by the woodsmoke in his clothes.

When the Christmas hols began, _every few days_ turned into every day. Their rendezvous are longer and in places where there’s a greater risk of discovery. Draco has to admit that Potter is a dab hand at Silencing and Concealment Charms, but things seem to be escalating to the point where the removal of clothing is imminent and Draco would rather not be caught in the library stacks with his trousers around his ankles.

He directs his focus back to the matter of choices, in particular the choices he _should_ be making during this critical period. If he’s to prove, if only to himself, that he’s changed for the better, he’ll have to watch his every step, scrutinise his own motives mercilessly. Otherwise, he’ll just keep repeating his mistakes.

Continuing this reckless game with Potter would certainly be a mistake. A disaster.

Draco feels his Warming Charm disrupted by a wisp of cold air and opens his eyes to find Potter sitting beside him again. He seems less drunk and more serious this time.

“Hi,” he says. “Can I have some of that Warming Charm?”

Draco recasts the charm over both of them and waits for Potter to speak. He’s working himself up to saying something, judging by his discomfort. He glances over his shoulder at Granger and Weasley to make sure they aren’t watching.

“What you said before about choosing the wrong things because you think they’ll make you happy. I just realised… were you talking about us?”

Draco fights the urge to roll his eyes. Then he resists the impulse to leave the party and avoid this conversation altogether.

 _No,_ he orders himself, _don’t run away like a coward._ He won’t shrink away from doing the right thing again, not even for a chance to shag Harry Potter. He’s at another crossroads, his first serious one since returning to Hogwarts, and he’s determined to take the correct path.

“Of course I was. You can’t possibly think what we’re doing is a wise choice for either of us,” Draco shrugs, hoping that nonchalance will allow him to keep a shred of his dignity. “I think that’s obvious, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t talking about the bad choices part,” Potter says. He’s having trouble looking at Draco. “I meant what you said about choosing what you think will make you happy. Do you think… being with me will make you happy?”

“You’re missing the point, Potter.”

“What point is that?”

“The point is that you shouldn’t choose something that’s going to hurt yourself or someone else, no matter how happy you think it will make you.”

Potter’s mouth opens and closes once as he processes Draco’s statement. He looks over towards his friends again before sliding closer to Draco. They’re so close now that Draco can smell the beer on his breath when he speaks.

“So you’re saying you’re worried that being with me will _hurt_ you?” Potter asks.

“I know it will. And more importantly, I know it will hurt you too, if your friends find out.”

“Then we should stop? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Draco swallows and turns his head away. He can’t bear to look at Potter when he says this.

“Yes, I think we should stop. It’s been fun, but a bit of snogging isn’t worth the consequences that we would face if it gets out.”

“A bit of snogging,” Potter repeats in a flat voice. “Is that what it’s been?”

“Potter, be honest. It’s not like a relationship between us is remotely possible.”

“We haven’t even talked about a relationship yet! Maybe we should have—”

“There’s no point in talking about it!” Draco cries.

He realises how loudly he spoke and expects to see everyone in the room watching them, but Thomas has captured their attention by attempting to balance an empty bottle on his forehead while standing on the back of a sofa. Draco silently thanks Morgana for drunken Gryffindor antics.

“There’s no point,” he says in a lower voice, “because I would never be an acceptable choice for you. You _know_ that and I don’t think I need to list the many, many reasons why. Don’t pretend you wanted anything more from me than a cheap thrill.”

“You think you know what I want?” Potter growls. “You think you’ve got me all figured out?”

A loud cheer rises from across the room, making both of them flinch. Thomas is sprawled on top of Finnigan on the carpet, where they apparently fell when Finnigan tried to catch him. Now they’re rolling on the floor as Thomas struggles to free himself from Finnigan’s legs, which are wrapped around his waist.

Potter takes this interruption as his cue to stand. He leans down until his face is close to Draco’s again.

“I’ve had more than enough of people deciding what’s best for me. Unlike you, _I_ don’t think we’re doing anything wrong, but feel free to fuck off if you don’t want to see me anymore. Go find your own _cheap thrill_ for all I care.”

Draco watches helplessly as he stalks over to Granger and says something in her ear. Then he walks out of the common room to the corridor.

“Where’s Harry going?” Draco hears Weasley shout over the music.

“Getting some fresh air, he says,” Granger calls back.

Draco wraps his arms around his legs and rests his forehead on his knees. What the hell just happened? What did he do?

No matter how much his conscience tells him that he did the right thing, Draco can’t help but feel like he’s lost something important. Something precious. His mind unhelpfully reaches into his memories and replays moments from the past few weeks: Potter murmuring into Draco’s neck that his skin _tastes so good_ as they were wrapped around each other in a dim corridor just before curfew; the times he looked up in class or during meals to find Potter’s eyes on him, making Draco shiver with anticipation; their cold lips slowly warmed by open-mouthed kisses in an alley in Hogsmeade while Potter’s Disillusionment Charm cloaked them in the hum of his magic.

 _You’re pathetic,_ Draco tells himself. If he can’t overcome whatever keeps pulling him towards Potter—teenage lust or years-long obsession, he’s not even certain what name to give it—how can he trust himself to make the right decisions in the future?

He lifts his head to look up at the bright stars again and silently wishes for the smallest spoonful of Gryffindor self-righteousness, just enough to outweigh his regrets about letting Potter go. Draco sighs. There isn’t a single shooting star in sight to wish upon, just a million, impossibly distant ones blinking indifferently above him.

Gryffindor virtue is overstated anyway, Draco thinks. Just look at the way Potter is unable to keep his hands off Draco.

Was. _Was_ unable to keep his hands off Draco.

_“Feel free to fuck off if you don’t want to see me anymore.”_

He said it so fiercely, the way someone would fling something sharp from their hand. Now the words are lodged in Draco’s heart and he’s not sure he’ll be able to recover. They’ll be a shard of coldness that he carries around for the rest of his life.

“Ten minutes till midnight!” someone shouts.

Draco tenses. Potter hasn’t returned yet and Draco doesn’t want to be here when he does. The one thing that could make this disastrous party even worse would be having to watch Potter cheer in the new year from across the room, knowing that he’s avoiding Draco out of anger rather than discretion.

He slips off the window seat and skirts around the edge of the room to the stairs. The sounds of the party fade as he climbs the spiraling steps, and Draco unexpectedly finds the silence oppressive. For a moment, he’s tempted to go back and hover out of sight near the bottom of the stairs, just so he can hear the countdown to the end of this _annus horribilis_. He thinks of his warm bed and decides against it. He heads for the loo for a slash.

When he steps out of the bathroom, Potter is climbing the last stair to the corridor.

“Oh, I was coming to look for you,” he says.

Draco almost sways where he’s standing. Potter is _right there_ with his red jumper and his untamable mop of hair, warm and close and _looking for Draco_. He craves nothing in the world more than the relief he’d feel from having Potter’s arms around him again.

Draco knows he can’t throw himself at Potter, yet his legs don’t seem to be getting the message to brush past him to get to his room.

“And why is that?” he asks. If his heart and body won’t cooperate, at least he can feign disinterest.

“I just wanted to explain why…” Potter pauses to step closer, only an arm’s length away from Draco, then takes a deep breath. “I would wish to be happy, too, if I could. But I think it means something different for me and I wanted to explain.”

“All right,” Draco says. “You’re not still drunk, are you?”

“No, I had Hermione cast a Sobering Charm on me before I came over to talk to you the second time.”

Draco winces. That charm is uncomfortable, bordering on painful, and the fact that Potter was willing to endure it means he thought it was important to talk to Draco with a clear head.

“Go on, then” he says, more gently this time.

“I never got to make a lot of choices about my life before the war ended,” Potter begins, leaning against the wall. “I hated that so much, even when things weren’t terrible or people were just trying to protect me. I told myself after the battle that I would make my own decisions about how to live my life. And if they’re bad ones, at least they’ll be mine, and I’ll deal with the consequences and try to fix things. I know I’ve made mistakes—really awful ones, usually when I was scared or under pressure—but I believe my instincts are good most of the time, so I think I can trust myself to make the right choices.”

“Unlike me.”

“I don’t think you’re doing so badly anymore,” Potter says with an uncertain smile. “Honestly. I know you’ve changed a lot. I wouldn’t want to be around you at all if I didn’t think so. Look, I’ll understand if you don’t want to see me anymore, er, like we’ve been doing. I’m sorry I never put myself in your shoes to think about how it must look to you. Or that there might be risks for you. You know, besides the embarrassment of getting caught.”

“We never talked about it, did we?” Draco points out.

“No, we didn’t. We should have. It wasn’t a cheap thrill to me, Draco. I want you to know that. Not that it wasn’t thrilling,” Potter adds, smirking at his feet. “I never thought of it as dangerous or wrong, not once. If you really want to stop, I won’t push you to change your mind. I know the stakes are higher for you in some ways—”

“What are you saying?” Draco asks, cutting Potter off. A dangerous tendril of hope is wrapping itself around his heart; he tries to ignore it. “Do you mean that you still want to… What do you want? Just spell it out for me, please.”

“I want to be with you. To _try_ to be with you,” Potter amends. “Properly, I mean. Not just sneaking around. Even though that is pretty fun.”

“And when you tell your friends? And the Weasleys? They’re going to be furious. And when they’re done shouting at you, they’re probably going to come and hex me.”

“No one’s going to hex you! And my friends aren’t going to be furious. I don’t think they’re even going to be surprised, to be honest,” Potter says, rubbing the back of his neck and shrugging sheepishly.

“What do you mean?” Draco demands. “Do you think they suspect? Did they see us?”

“No, no,” Harry assures him. “I don’t think they did, anyways. They’ve teased me for years about being obsessed with you and following you around. I don’t think they’ll freak out. Besides, they’re my best friends and my family, and I trust them to stand by me when I decide that something is important to me.”

“And snogging me is important to you?” Draco asks, only half-joking. His heart is beating at an uncomfortable pace, like he’s about to tip over the edge of a precipice.

“Not the snogging, you berk. _You’re_ important to me,” Potter laughs. “And I really want to give it a go with you. Dating. And stuff.”

Draco releases his breath in an incredulous huff and closes the distance between them to gently push Potter against the wall. He looks into Harry’s face for a long moment before bracing his hand beside his head and leaning in close.

“You have terrible taste in men, Potter,” Draco murmurs. “I’m not surprised, given your terrible taste in other things.”

“Well, I am a cretin,” Harry grins. “You’re always telling me.”

“You’re also stupidly reckless,” Draco says, shifting his body closer to Potter’s. _Harry’s._ “This may very well end in disaster. We don’t even know if we can get along yet, much less have some kind of relationship. We’re taking an enormous gamble even trying.”

Harry lifts his hands to Draco’s waist and slides them upward around the back of Draco’s shoulders. “Some gambles are worth it, if the reward is great enough.”

He pulls Draco toward him until their mouths are only an inch apart. There’s no challenge in Harry’s eyes this time, only hope and affection. He hesitates, as if to ask whether Draco’s ready to leap with him into the unknown, to take a chance on a kind of happiness that’s _theirs_ —exhilarating and intense and unpredictable, like a Seeker’s game between equally-matched fliers.

 _“Yes,”_ Draco whispers and lets himself be pulled into Harry’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!
> 
> Visit me on [Tumblr](https://xanthippe74.tumblr.com/).


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